Letter
Poetry and Public Action
by Jennifer Benka
Awards
Introducing the Inaugural Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows
Awards
The American Poets Prizes
Essay
“Renascence”: Edna St. Vincent Millay Today
by Alicia Ostriker
Q&A
Investing in Poetry
An interview with the team behind Treehouse Investments
Essay
Late Humanism
by Matthew Zapruder
Essay
Dismantling Rage: On Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider
by Mahogany L. Browne
Re:Print
Selected poems from new books by Hanif Abdurraqib, Meena Alexander, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Elaine Equi, Shira Erlichman, Kimberly Reyes, Prageeta Sharma, Danez Smith, Monica Sok, and Jillian Weise.
Books Noted
by Laura Eve Engel
Poem
“Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Henson”
by Robin Coste Lewis
From Our Sponsors
Featured Fall Books for 2019
Cover image
Lorna Simpson
Darkening, 2018
Ink and screen print on gessoed wood
274.3 x 243.8 x 3.2 cm (108 x 96 x 11/4 in.)
“At the beginning of the exhibition, we have an excerpt from [Robin Coste Lewis’s] latest project about the Arctic. This poem is about memory and time—kind of like Homer’s Odyssey—linked to living in Los Angeles, living in Crenshaw, and her life. It’s about place, but it’s contemplating a state of mind as well.
Conceptually, Robin and I have these almost parallel tracks. It’s really interesting to connect with another artist and to find both your intentions and fascinations are aligned. That to me is really inspiring. For what I can’t bring words to or what I am sensing about the work and thinking about.
[...] Blue is through all cultures and possesses a poignant and amazing gravitational pull. I mean, we live on this blue marble in the middle of the universe, so blue is that very important color. Of course, culturally it’s the blues, ‘blue black,’ and in terms of English colloquial use of the word blue—particularly ‘blue black’ culture—that’s absolutely important.”
—Lorna Simpson in conversation with Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Read the full interview.
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